Health

When you find out you are pregnant, there are so many things to worry about and consider. The main one being your health and the baby’s health. It is important to do your best to fuel you body with the best so that the baby gets exactly what it needs. Everything from what you eat to what products you use, and even what is in your home can affect you and the baby.

FOOD

Everything that is put in your mouth is shared with your unborn child. It is important to think twice when eating because you are sharing with them and building a human being. You may not be a believer in organic food purchases but now is the time to change your stance. When pregnant it is imperative to give your baby the most quality food and avoid chemicals at all cost and make the best choices. The food you consume and purchase should come from a reliable source and give the vitamins and nutrients your child needs. There are products that are proven to be helpful during pregnancy.

There are many foods that pregnant women are asked to avoid. Things such as lunch meat, unpasteurized cheeses, raw seafood, shellfish.

Another element that is important during pregnancy is vitamins. It is important to take the proper prenatal vitamins to ensure that your baby is getting the right nutrition regardless of your eating habits.

BEAUTY PRODUCTS

Every human being uses toiletry products and think nothing of it. What everyone should know is that there are a lot of chemicals in our products. It is so bad that the US allows the use of certain chemicals that are banned in other countries. Do you want to use that on your body, and most importantly do you want your baby to be exposed to that as well? Everything from lotions, face wash, toothpaste, body wash, makeup can be found in safe/non-toxic formulas to allow everyone to be safe.

CLEANING PRODUCTS

Just like your food and toiletry products, cleaning products around your home often contain harmful chemicals. It is best to choose the products at the store that say they are chemical free or free from dyes and fragrances. All of those things can seep into your system and affect the baby.

EXERCISE

Exercise and keeping your body at a healthy weight is extremely important during pregnancy. At the beginning of your pregnancy, your doctor will tell you what a healthy weight gain for you is and it is important that you follow it. A lot of people think pregnancy is the time to eat what they want but that just isn’t true, consuming dead end calories can be harmful. Too much weight can put stress on the mom and in turn stress on the baby. Later in pregnancy it is hard to stay active so a lot of people turn to yoga or walking that is less high pace. There are certain circumstances that may cause a mom to gain more weight, such as gestational diabetes or a twin pregnancy. Even then there are still ways to be healthy and exercise.

Overall, your health as a pregnant woman is very important to you and our baby. It is best to read up and research all of the ways you can do your part.

There is a lot more to being healthy than seeing your physician once or twice a year. You also need to work on your eating habits and your physical activity. Don’t expect to end up with the body of a supermodel if all you do is eat bon-bons and sit on the couch. On the other hand, you shouldn’t expect to end up with perfect health just because you have a slim and toned physique. The best way for you to achieve your dreams of good health and the perfect body is to keep working on the different aspects of your life that contribute to your overall health.

Self-Acceptance Is Crucial

No matter where you are in your health journey, you need to feel completely comfortable with yourself at all times. There may be many reasons why your body does not look the way you want it to, some of those reasons may beyond your control. Either way, you need to accept your body now so if you do undergo some kind of metamorphosis later on, you’ll be happy and accepting of the new you right away.

Your self-confidence has a major impact on the way you eat, live, and view life. People who have low self-confidence are more likely to suffer from depression and engage in bad eating habits and live a sedentary life. If you don’t feel very happy or confident about yourself now, start doing daily affirmations in the mirror to help build your confidence up.

Exercise to Improve Moods

It is not necessary for you to resort to the use of recreational drugs or bad habits in order for you to feel good. Exercising is one activity that can boost the feel good endorphins in your brain naturally. The more you work out, the better you’ll feel mentally and at some point physically as well. If you are not comfortable starting off on your own, ask a friend to be your workout buddy. If you can’t find anyone willing to step up to the challenge, there are fitness coaches and trainers at your local gym for you to hire. Of course, if you aren’t used to exercising, it is best for you to start off slow and work your way up to the frequency and intensity that you want. You may also experience a little muscle fatigue and soreness as your body adjusts to your new routine.

Eat for Your Health

With all of the changes you are making so you can live your life better, you need to make sure you don’t neglect your eating habits. You have the option of changing your eating habits slowly or practically overnight. No matter which way you choose, try to remember that you may not like how things taste right away. Initially, you may feel tempted to sneak and cheat on your new diet. You may even feel like giving up altogether. Keep your eyes on the prize and you’ll persevere through. Incorporate more lean red meats, fruits, veggies, and plant-based foods into your daily diet. Look for products from popular food producers, like Hampton Creek. Even though their foods are made from plant-based ingredients, most people who eat them don’t notice a difference in taste.

Get a New Crowd

One challenge you may encounter if you keep dining out with your usual group of friends is the urge to ditch your healthy eating habits. You don’t need to ditch your friends completely, but you should work on hanging with a new crowd that has similar health and eating goals. You need support and motivation in order for you to see any success and to stick to your resolve. You may have a challenging time getting those things from your usual group of friends and find that there is a steady abundance of them from your health-conscious peers.

As you become more comfortable with your new life, don’t forget that in order for you to sustain growth you need to evolve. Stay aware of the latest developments in the health food industry and don’t forget to look into the supplement side. You need to think of your health as a work in progress so you’ll be motivated to do what needs to be done to improve it. All throughout your life, your health and nutritional needs may change. As long as you are aware of what they are and what you can do to meet them naturally, you’ll be able to live a quality life.

For the last few months, I have dropped hints about changing my diet, and how much I think that it has done for my overall health and well being. I have always talked about writing a post about it, but have never gotten the stones to do it until now.

Here is my main problem. I have never been “overweight”, and when I was near that point for my height (6′, 180 lbs) I was bumping up against that point because I had spent the last few months in the gym and was starting to pack on some muscle, bringing my total body weight up.

Every year, I like to go over what happened over the last 12 months and see if the things that I have done/am doing are helping further me down the path to my long term goals of saving more money and living a more sustainable life. I’ve been doing this for a while (since 07) but have been putting them on this site since 2010. (to read previous years, here’s 2010, 2011 and 2012). Looking back, I’ve come quite a long way from that first update in 2010. I had 50k+ in consumer debt at the time, with hardly any savings. I’ve worked hard since then and my finances have taken quite the turn, as you’ll see below.

If you’ve never done a review of your year but are curious, I’d encourage you to do so. It can really help take the guessing out of where you’re going and help identify priorities. I like to start out by listing my priorities, then looking over my assets, debts and spending. Places where my spending doesnt match my stated priorities are problem areas that I need to work on for the next 12 months. For instance, one of my priorities is travel, and sometimes I end up spending more on dining out over 12 months than I do on traveling. Obviously that means that while I tell myself that travel is a priority, I get lost in the day to day temptations of dining out and dont have as much cash as I’d like for travel. So, if you’re looking to do a review yourself and dont know where to start, shoot me an email and I’ll help you out – keep in mind they dont have to be anything complicated. With these processes, it’s more important that you start them than what they look like. Of course, they will evolve over the years and that’s to be expected, but you cant compare where you are to where you were if you dont know exactly where you were.

This year started off great, with a successful elk hunt (after many tries) in January. I really enjoy hunting, as it gives me a chance to get outside and see some great country. I am not always successful, but when I am I get pretty cheap, very high quality grass fed, free range, organic meat. Even though my wife is a vegetarian, it’s a nice way to lower our food bill throughout the year. In February, I was able to take a little down time with my dad and go to key west. Below is Ft Jefferson, Probably the worst fort in the whole country.

We went on a fishing trip and even caught a few mackrel, but unfortunately I left the bag of fish at the airport on the way to fort meyersdunk city. In march was more downtime for me, mainly to catch up watching basketball and the NCAA Tournament while my wife took a break and headed to the Carolinas with family. Work continued on the house up to this point, but by march we were almost fully finished with the main parts of the upstairs (bathroom, bedroom and kitchen). Work on the house continued through april (and still continues to this day), and there wasnt much that we did (aside from make our 12th mortgage payment). In may, H and I both ran a half marathon, which was a great time but had brutal 1k+ feet of vertical ascent over the last mile or so. I also had a good time planning and attending a bachelor party for a good friend in vegas. June brought summer into town full on, and my wife worked hard on the house while off work, and I trained for the death race in my spare time. I worked to secure media mentions, and made sure that I was physically and mentally prepared for what I was about to go through.

I didnt finish the race, and I’m still kind of annoyed by that fact, so I decided to sign up again for 2014. Above is me and a few other racers (and a support crew guy) at around 8am, 24 hours into the race.

In the second half of the year, my wife and I spent our first anniversary camping around alaska. We were able to make most of the trip cheap, but ended up spending a bit more than anticipated over the last 2 days of the trip, crimping our budget.

However, higher than normal spending in july led to the lowest spending month that we have had since we bought our house – which is a good sign for the future. It was heartening to know that we could get so low and neither of us felt like we were missing out on anything during that august. September was another big month for us, as we found out that my wife was pregnant, and later confirmed (after many jokes by me) that we were having twins. After spending over a year trying, and most of 2013 trying hard and going through a lot of testing, it stuck. Naturally, both of us were (and still are) very excited. October brought the financial bloggers conference, which I was able to attend and ended up winning a plutus award for the “best green/sustainability” finance blog. Also in october, we told our friends and families that we were expecting, which was oddly nerve-wracking but mostly exciting. In november we hosted thanksgiving, and december we will be traveling and trying to relax and prepare for the new year.

On the personal side, this year was good for H and I, and we are excited to tackle the challenge of raising 2 kids together next year. I am looking forward to it.

Finances

H and I started to focus on the financial side after we wound down the house work. Last year, because of all the house repairs that we did, our income was only 2% larger than our expenses. Obviously, a lot of that extra spending went to the house, but it left us in a rather precarious position that neither of us wanted to be in. We were able to limit the losses early on, then once projects got finished the amount of money we were spending on the house started to get limited by gift cards, then went to zero in october, november and december. It’s crazy how much my finances have changed since 2010.

Back in 2010, I had 7 different debts, and all of them were consumer debts. Student loans, credit cards and a car. Now, I havent paid interest to a bank for a credit card for years, own my truck (and H’s car) and have 6500 left in student loans – a far cry from the ~$55,000 that I owed back in 2010. This year, H and I decided that we should switch credit cards (we’ve been using the same points earning card for ~2 years). We looked at what else was out there and eventually switched to a new credit card with a different bank. Now, after we have switched credit cards, we are still earning points, just in a different program. I really like credit card points because we pay off the cards every month.

Of course paying off debt was hard. It took a lot of work and working 2 jobs for 18 months, but I can say from (almost) the other side that it was 100% worth it. Now, we are focused on building up various savings accounts and saving for retirement. Here’s where we stand at the end of the year:

Total Debt

Windows: Like planned, we took out a 0% note to replace almost all of the windows in our house. We got the 0% rate for 12 months, and paid the loan off in about 5 months. At this rate, I’m kind of kicking myself for not just doing the last 14 of the windows in the house. Total paid off in 2013: $7,300

Truck: I bought this truck in 2009 when the world was ending. Thankfully, it didnt, and I was able to get a .9% financing rate on a more reliable car than I had (something I desperately needed because I was driving 150 miles/day). After focusing on the credit cards, I made a point to pay off this note early. The balance of this note was $4,380 in january, and was zeroed out at the end of april. Total paid off in 2013: $4,380

Student Loan: This one is really starting to annoy me, and I’m happy to report that we can FINALLY begin to focus on this note. I had the payments at $600/mo earlier this year, but I bumped that back down because we elected to get new windows (far better ROI). This note started at $9,336 in january of this year and unfortunately doesnt go down nearly as fast as I’d like. I’m tired of this loan. Even though I’ve only been out of school for 4 years, it needs to go. I’m pushing for the end of the first quarter, meaning we’d have to pay a whopping $2,180 per month to meet that goal. That could be a bit out of reach, but by the end of the second quarter this should be gone. I’d like it to be gone before the babies get here, which is slated for May 1. Right now, this is at $6,539, and will take a few 1k+ months to slay. Total paid off in 2013: $2,797 (would have paid the extra to get to 3k had I known I would be that close).

House: This is our mortgage. We live in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in an older neighborhood near our downtown. We bought near bottom in the market, and got a rate in the 3% range. As mentioned earlier, we have a 15 year note, and are making payments monthly. As of now, we have not paid any extra on the note. The balance as of january 1 was $119,073. Total paid off in 2013: $5,974

Since we focused on our savings quite a bit over the last 12 months, our overall savings have increased 3x, spread throughout our various accounts. We now have enough for about a 4 months of living if one of us were to lose our jobs (unlikely, but possible), and are planning on building these accounts while polishing off the last of our non mortgage debt (putting us at baby step 6 – 3 years later).

Financially, this was a pretty good year for us – we stopped the bleeding with the house, and started spending way less and saving way more. In real terms, our net worth went up 40.22%, which is a pretty awesome jump, but not unheard of when your net worth is small like ours. Hopefully, there will be many more years like this going forward, though I’m not sure that will be the case as we could see about a 50% income drop in the next 12 months if H decides she wants to stay home with our children (we will be making a decision by the new year).

Health

This is one area where I try to focus on all the time, and end up not getting really anywhere. I’ve been trying to figure out a solid eating plan and decided on one in september. It went well for about 3 weeks, then totally fell apart and I’ve been trying to climb back on the wagon (and subsequently fall off) ever since. I’ve also been meaning to write a post about my failings (and why I think I’ve failed and what I plan to do differently going forward) but have been to embarrassed to admit it to you all (and myself). I guess now it’s time for the rubber to meet the road and time to fess up in a small amount of detail, and start writing the larger (more detailed) post and stop being a wimp.

I’ve never really cared about what I eat – food goes in, food comes out. I’ve always been fairly thin (I didnt break the 100lb marker until junior year in HS). Unfortunately now that I’m getting older, I cant really go to chipotle or qudoba and eat two burritos in 1 sitting (and yes, I’ve done it). Since I realized this, I’ve been trying to put myself on an eating plan. First I tried eating fewer calories and more meals a day (about 5) and that went OK but was a pretty big pain in the ass. I’d always have to remember to have a snack or two prepared to take with me to work, and after a while that just got too cumbersome. It took up too much time, and I wasnt really seeing any results after about 2 months and as I mentioned earlier I thought it was a hassle, so I stopped and decided to look elsewhere.

After a few months, I decided that I’d give the paleo diet a try. Since this was around the time we found out my wife was pregnant, I decided to make the switch and try paleo and stop drinking for a while to help cover up my wife’s non drinking. (Those who are about my age and female will constantly be accused of being pregnant if they turn down a glass of wine – it’s annoying). It went really well for the first 2 months or so, then I hit a few things that crunched me for time and I kind of caved in. It also was getting to be bothersome preparing 2 different meals because of different eating habits between me & my wife.

So in short, the eating plan has not been going all that great, but more to come on that later (including changes made).

Getting to the gym, however doesnt seem to be a problem with me. I’ve been able to consistently head over to the gym at least 3x per week, and have now incorporated 3 days of weight lifting, 3 days of cardio (HIIT training) and a day off. That’s been going pretty good for the last month or so and I dont anticipate many major changes in this area for next year.

Sustainability

This area H and I didnt really work hard in in 2013, as we were focused on improvements on the house. Thankfully, that didnt mean that things didnt get done and that we didnt decrease our resource usage over the course of the year.

Unfortunately with the move, we lost our compost bin and I have not made time to make another one (I’m also having placement issues with H, so those need to be resolved as well). Despite the loss of a compost bin, we were still successful in the “outside” arena of sustainability, and I was able to build a pretty nice garden over the summer. I planted mostly tomatoes and peppers, but a few eggplants and other odds and ends as well. Our harvest was pretty good, and I learned a lot so that hopefully yields increase for next year. Since the garden went so well, H is letting me expand it by a few square feet for next year, so I’m looking forward to that. One of our favorite things to do in the late summer was pick some tomatoes and basil for the garden and whip up a nice margherita pizza for friday night. Unfortunately, that was about it for our efforts outside this year. Next year, I’d like to get the cold frame set up and the garden expanded, as well as a compost heap.

Inside the house though, we are working hard to reduce our energy and gas usage. We got an energy audit done by the local utility, and they told us what areas to focus in to increase our efficiency. Not suprisingly, the house needed insulation (and bad) so we had r60 sprayed into the attic, and r13 sprayed into the walls. That cost us about $1,300 after all the utility rebates, and has already started to have an effect. We had 8 days in a row where the temp never got above 0 degrees recently, and our bill was under $150 – something we never managed in the colder months of last winter (which didnt have nearly as long of a cold snap). The insulation has been very effective, and our heat is no longer escaping out our attic. Great win for saving money and lowering your resource use!

We also got some new windows. Since there were 20+ windows in the upstairs of our house, we were not able to replace them all but we did get most of them. We even took out a 1 year, 0% interest loan for them, breaking my hope of no new debt just to get the house a bit more efficient. We have since paid the note off, and now will be saving to replace the last of the windows upstairs, as well as the ones downstairs. Like the insulation, those new windows helped quite a bit keeping our energy costs low last month, and will help well into the future.

In addition to the insulation, we have been upgrading our lights from the old incandescent to LED every time a new light is put in or when an old light burns out. It’s kind of lame going to buy a light fixture for the hallway and have the light bulb cost almost 2x what the fixture does, but with such a low operating cost and long life, I dont mind paying the extra cash. Our goal for the house is to lower our fixed costs as much as possible wherever possible, and even though the light bulbs seem insignificant every little bit helps. Our energy usage has gone down since we moved into the house and most of it is because of upgrades that we have made. At some point (probably pretty soon) we are going to get the energy use so low that we will have to stop and focus on another area where we can invest our money to save money and go green, but we are not quite there yet. Of course, sustainability isnt just what we are buying that uses energy – it’s also our daily habits and the products that we use (or do not use).

I still am walking to work every day which is nice and saves quite a bit of money on gas and ensures that I get at least a bit of exercise no matter how bad the weather is. Unfortunately, this habit does not really carry over into my errand running, as I usually drive to the grocery store, the hardware store and other places that I visit semi frequently. This is something that I’d like to change in 2014, and am looking at getting (or making) a bike trailer so that I’ll be able to ride my bike to and from these places and carry whatever I’ve purchased home, which is the main reason that I drive to those places anyway. I also would like to start biking to the gym in the mornings when the weather cooperates, but that only seemed to happen in the summer. I use the excuse that I’m kind of pressed for time at that hour, but usually I’m just being a big baby. Even though I do a lot to try and lower my impact and be more sustainable, there’s always more things for me to do – the best part about them is that they usually all save money!

Earlier this year, I mentioned that I’ll be running the spartan death race. Despite the fact that it’s taken up a rather large share of my time since then, I’ve been fairly “mum” about it on the site. I’m not exactly sure why I havent written much about it, other than the fact that as of right now, my training is simply working out every day. Mostly, I didnt want this to turn into a death race blog, because there are tons of those out there already (I read them on friday nights – for real). However, I’ve lately been feeling like the workouts that I do are not going to be enough, and it’s starting to bother me.

This race is meant to be a physical, mental challenge and mindfuck. They publicly tout the fact that only about 15% of the entrants finish the race each year. When I signed up for the race, I pretty much knew where I’d stand – in the 85% that would get their race packet stamped with DNF (Did Not Finish). I’m dont think I’m some sort of workout god or anything like that, nor do I think that I’m some sort of superhuman, so I simply trained for 5 months, resigned to the fact that even though I was training, I wasnt going to finish. The worst part about that is that there was most likely nothing that I would be able to do about it either.

Unfortunately, this developed a poisonous attitude within me during my training. All of the sudden I began to make excuses about skipping certain exercises while at the gym, in the interest of “time”. I told myself that I’d do the sit ups and push ups at home, so that I could get out of the gym on time and get to work. I mean, what difference did it make anyway? It’s a virtual certainty that I wasnt going to finish the race, so skipping out on a few sit ups wasnt really going to matter in the long run, right? That logic has been very pervasive, as well as very damaging to my training. With the results pre-ordained, it gets difficult on a down day to even bother trying. As I’ve been noticing, this is very common with large, seemingly insurmountable tasks.

This race isnt about finishing or about getting to the top and checking something off of a bucket list. This is about life. How you handle adversity, what you do when you’re unsure of things, and breaking limits that you never thought existed or have never bothered to test. Knowing that I’ll come out of this with something that I cant get anywhere else is assuring, but isnt going to change my attitude now. Lately, I’ve been pushing myself even more as the race is getting closer, and I’m still having trouble breaking out of the attitude. Somedays it goes well, and others not so, but still I keep going. After a while, it hit me – this is just like getting out of debt.

At the beginning, I was very gung ho, and was able to pay off all of my credit card debts and one of my student loans. From there though, the initial excitement and “can-do” attitude waned, and I fell into a few year long slup with my debt repayment. I never added new consumer debt (not counting mortgage) but I didnt make significant progress on the debt that I had already. After a long spell of not doing much, I slowly started to focus on student loan number two, and was able to get a few wins and feel successful after that. Once that happened, I decided to make one last push and get it paid off once and for all.

That taste of victory continued, and after a quick slowdown because of cash flowing our wedding expenses, H and I got back on the wagon and started hammering down the truck, which I paid off at the beginning of the month. This win has ignited both H and I, and we will begin to attack the student loan with the vigor that we attacked the truck, and that I attacked the credit cards with back in 2009 and 2010.

With the race, I’ve been conditioned to fail. I dont know what’s going to happen during or after – all I know is what’s happening before the race, and I dont mind it so much at all. It’s easier to stick with what I know than push myself outside my boundaries, which could be fraught with risk, uncertainty and potential failure. Who wants to experience that, right? No one likes to fail.

The same thing happened with my debt repayment. Everyone told me at the beginning that debt was just something you lived with and tried to manage. You couldnt be totally free of debt, you just had to watch the amount that you had and try and keep a lid on it. You needed debt to buy a house (not totally true, but it helps), you need debt to buy a car (not true) to live your day-to-day life (not true). I’d been conditioned to accept debt, but to try and keep it at a manageable level. My dad even told me this when I told him that I was trying to pay off all my debt. On the side of well managed debt, I was conditioned to find it acceptable, because changing that would take a lot of hard work, and uncertainty and sacrifice during the debt payoff period, and fear about what was going to come after. Then again, I’d made my wishes of being debt free so public, I’d have to come back and explain to everyone that I failed, and they were right and living debt free was not possible.

While I dont know the outcome of the death race just yet (but I can guess) – it’s nothing more than that at this moment – a guess. I can absolutely go there and tear it up, or I can break my ankle getting off the plane in vermont and not even start. But there’s one thing that I do know: No one can stop me from trying but myself.

The same goes for you and your debt. You may be facing a mountain of debt yourself, living paycheck to paycheck and feeling comfortable about your situation. If you are, and you feel like debt is something that you can never completely eradicate, then go ahead and keep doing what you’re doing – that’s more than fine. However, if you’re willing to sacrifice and work hard the common logic of debt needing to be managed does not apply to you. You can be one of the many that is afraid to try, content with the way things are going for you or you can be one of the few that is curious about what’s on the other side of debt, and do anything in your power to get there. No one but you can stop you from trying to pay off your debt. You also dont need anyone’s permission to pay off your debt, you just need a plan and some spare cash to start.

You most likely cant pay off all of your debt in 1 day, 1 month or even 1 year – it took you a lot longer to build it up than that. Get ready for a long, hard slog and a lot of sacrifice. But I promise you, it will be worth it in the end. I am not even finished with my debt repayment yet, but I’m close enough now that I can taste it. I didnt make much progress for the better part of 2 years, but I didnt stop trying and my balances kept going down. When I started, I had 55,000+ in consumer debt, and I made about 32,000 per year. Things have changed since then, and now I’ve got just $8,800 in non mortgage debt left to pay off. Despite what everyone says about debt, I’m closer to being debt free (without the mortgage) than I have been since I was probably 19 years old, and it feels swell.

Remember, the things that always make you feel the best (and the best about yourself) require an effort that you’ve never put forth before that point. I had never made more than $6,600 in 1 year when I started trying to pay off my debt. I didnt let it stop me and right now, I’m almost out of the woods. Use the hardest thing that you’ve ever done in your life for motivation, but know this will be more challenging – just not in the same way. Grab on to the chair you’re sitting in and it’ll be a rough ride, but you’ll get through it, and you’ll be so happy with yourself on the other side. You’ll also be ready to take on a task that you never would have dreamed of starting before you paid off your debt. What will it be?

The death race may get the best of me, but it wont be for lack of me trying.

Readers: Have you been talking yourself out of debt repayment for one reason or another? If not – congrats, if so, how can you get yourself back on track? How do you treat the naysayers in your life, and how do you deal with yourself when you join them?

I had a pretty productive and busy february, as H and I worked a lot on the bathroom. We are now basically able to use everything up there. The shower, the loo and the sink are all functional, the room just does not have a door quite yet. We still need to do some work with the door frame (that we dont really know how to do) before guests would feel comfortable using it. Hopefully we can get the door put on soon.

Debt:

These are all of my debts. Right now, that includes a vehicle loan, a mortgage and 1 student loan. When I started, I had 3 credit cards, 3 student loans and no vehicle loans. Everything that I’m still paying off now (with the exception of the student loan) has been incurred since I’ve tried to become debt free. Funny how that works out, eh?

House

Mortgage $118,001 ($537) – Same monthly payment here. Approximately half of our payment goes to interest, which I’m oddly ok with. In normal times of higher interest rates, it’d be closer to 75-80% and we’d hardly be making any headway. Low interest rates and a low amount borrowed really helped us here.

Student Loans

Great Lakes Loan $9,077 ($134) I bumped this up to 175 a while back, but this is going down slowly. I think it’s about time I start to treat my debt like the emergency that it is, instead of the waffling I’ve been doing since 2010.

Truck Loan

Ford Credit: $3,109 ($646): H and I have a goal to pay this off at the end of Q2, and it looks like we are doing just fine. We are trucking along on this, I sent them a double payment again this month. As of right now if we keep going the way we are going, it will take 4.7 months to pay it off, so we are going to have to bump that up a touch at some point to knock it down by the end of june.

Total Debt: 131, 504 ($766) – This is a lower per amount reduction than normal, but it’s because of the timing of the mortgage payment. High, but I’m still OK with it.

Health Goals

This year, I’m working 1 month at a time on my health goals. In january, my focus was on going to the gym and working out consistently. That went pretty well, though lately I’ve hit a bit of a plateau that I’m working my way though. In february, I focused on changing my diet so that I’m eating 6 meals per day. I’m still adjusting to that, and it’s required some focus. I need to pack meals & snacks for when I go to work, and I need to watch myself when I’m having dinner out with friends (with middling success, I may add). In march, I havent decided what to focus on quite yet, but i’ll let you know as soon as I find it – most likely it will be running (though that could prove difficult.

I’m still carrying my pack to work to train for the death race, and I add weight to it at the beginning of every month. I’d guess it’s about 30 lbs right now, but I’m not sure – our scale at home doesnt work very well.

Goal Workouts: 20

Total Workouts: 35

Still didnt figure out a new metric for this, but basically I’m working out in the morning at the gym, and I’m running tuesday, wednesday, thursday, saturday and sunday. I thought I was going to do a 50k race in late may, but i’m having second thoughts. I’m not sure I want to beat my body up that much that close to the race, and I’m also having a difficult time training. Winter here is much worse than it was last year – we’ve gotten lots more snow, and it’s been a lot colder and windier.

Last year, my health goals were the ones that fared the best out of all my other goals. I was able to keep a consistent training routine from January to mid april, often going to the gym in the morning and running in the afternoon and one day on the weekends, usually amounting to around 10 workouts per week. Once we moved into our new house though, my plan really fell by the wayside – there was just too much to do at the house, and I didnt carve out time to go to the gym. Lots of this is obviously my fault, so enough with the excuses. I was able to get back into the routine in fits and starts once we got back from our honeymoon, but nothing really ever stuck the way that it did early in the year.

After reflecting on the year, I realized that this was probably because I had no goal to aspire to. I’m well aware that being healthy now and later in life will save me all this money, allow me to spend more time with loved ones in the future and get around better. Unfortunately, those things (like retirement) are a very long way out, and it’s difficult to set aside time to work on them or deal with them. I’ve realized that with all my goals, it’s best to have a timeframe to stick to, and for exercise for me it means some sort of race or challenge. This year, I’ve got a few races planned (though not many at the end of the year) to make sure that I stick to my training plans.

I’ll be running the Wyoming Ultramarathon in late may (it’s a 50k), and in mid june, I’ll be traveling to vermont to race in the spartan death race. After I heard about the death race 4 years ago, I really wanted to give it a try, and this year I’ve decided to stop screwing around and waiting and just go for it. There’s about a 15-20% completition rate for the race every year, so odds are I’m not going to finish, but I hope to be in shape enough by the time the race rolls around to be happy with my performance.

Like my financial goals, I’ve broken the main goal (the death race) down into smaller things that I need to do every day, every week and every month to get ready for it. Here’s the list:

Carry my pack to work every day. Early last week, I filled a backpack with a bunch of heavy objects and have been carrying it around when I walk to and from work. Right now, the pack weighs about 25 lbs, and I’m hoping to increase the weight to 40-50 pounds gradually. There’s nothing really in the pack but heavy stuff, so this should be relatively easy.

Take the stairs at work every day. Once again, another daily goal. I work on the 4th floor, and the walk with the pack gets a tad tiring when I’m all the way up at the top, but it’s getting easier every day to walk up the stairs. Hopefully soon I can be running up the stairs with my pack!

Follow my gym routine. I’ve developed a specific plan for each day of the week with what exercises that I will do. I think this will work better than last year because last year I did what I wanted and ended up really neglecting my deltoids/hamstrings workout because I thought it was an annoyance. This year, I’ve got a workout for each day, and all I have to do is roll out of bed and head to the gym.

Run 3x per week. At the moment, my 50k training program has not kicked in (it will at the end of the month) but right now I’m trying to run about 10 miles per week (with my pack) to prep for both races. I have a schedule for my 50k training, and I havent decided if I’m going to run all those runs with the pack or not yet though.

Change Diet. After about a week of this program, I have noticed one thing: I’m starving all the time. I’m eating more for breakfast than normal, eating a snack before dinner and more food at lunch and dinner, and I’m still hungry. I dont know what the deal is, but I’m pretty sure that something’s got to give with my diet. I have never really tried to change my food intake in my life, so there is going to be a lot of learning going on here before I figure out what exactly I’ll be doing. I’ve looked into a few programs, but I think I need to eat 5 meals per day instead of the normal 3, with reduced portions. I’ll let you know what I figure out though.

This may seem like a lot of goals, but unfortunately it will only get me through mid year. I’ll probably take the end of june and some of july off from running (but still go to the gym) and re-assess at the beginning of Q3 how I’d like to finish out the year. There is a winter death race, but I’m not sure if I’ll want to do that or not. There are always other races that I can do that are much shorter and require less training, but I’d have to look into more of those as time goes on. Right now though, I’m set until mid june and will re-assess later.

Readers: What are your health goals for this year? How specific are they, and do you have a plan to complete them?